1. Sunlight <br /> <br />There was a sunlit absence. <br />The helmeted pump in the yard <br />heated its iron, <br />water honeyed <br /> <br />in the slung bucket <br />and the sun stood <br />like a griddle cooling <br />against the wall <br /> <br />of each long afternoon. <br />So, her hands scuffled <br />over the bakeboard, <br />the reddening stove <br /> <br />sent its plaque of heat <br />against her where she stood <br />in a floury apron <br />by the window. <br /> <br />Now she dusts the board <br />with a goose's wing, <br />now sits, broad-lapped, <br />with whitened nails <br /> <br />and measling shins: <br />here is a space <br />again, the scone rising <br />to the tick of two clocks. <br /> <br />And here is love <br />like a tinsmith's scoop <br />sunk past its gleam <br />in the meal-bin. <br /> <br />2. The Seed Cutters <br /> <br />They seem hundreds of years away. Brueghel, <br />You'll know them if I can get them true. <br />They kneel under the hedge in a half-circle <br />Behind a windbreak wind is breaking through. <br />They are the seed cutters. The tuck and frill <br />Of leaf-sprout is on the seed potates <br />Buried under that straw. With time to kill, <br />They are taking their time. Each sharp knife goes <br />Lazily halving each root that falls apart <br />In the palm of the hand: a milky gleam, <br />And, at the centre, a dark watermark. <br />Oh, calendar customs! Under the broom <br />Yellowing over them, compose the frieze <br />With all of us there, our anonymities.<br /><br />Seamus Heaney<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mossbawn-two-poems-in-dedication/
